A little grassroots non-profit art project named BuddhaBadges was recently brought to my attention by John of the blog ZenDirtZenDust. Wonderful in its simplicity and with some solid artistic design behind it, Buddhabadges sells one-inch Buddhist punk badges over the web for a dollar a piece to help raise money for a rotating roster of respectable charities. Ninety percent of their sales are donated, with the remaining ten percent going towards materials to make more badges.

So far they have raised funds for the Tibetan Nuns Project, Doctors Without Borders-Haiti, and Mongolian Disaster Appeal, and included in their list of potential upcoming beneficiaries is the International Campaign For Tibet's Yushu Earthquake Relief Efforts, Help Bat Nha, the Children’s Shelter Foundation-Thailand, The Nonviolent Peaceforce, Lotus Outreach, and others. They recently have been raising funds for the Meditation Initiative, which will in turn be gifted to the Tzu Chi Foundation.

As a socially engaged Buddhist with a long appreciation of punk, I think this project is just great. We wish them luck!